Should “He
descended into hell” be kept in the creed?

By
Rev. Nate Wilson

My
attention has been direction to an article from the late Rodney
Stortz (www.oaksonline.org)
objecting to the use of “He descended into hell” in the
Apostle’s creed. He quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913,
saying that this phrase was not original to the apostle’s creed
but was added in the late fourth century. He suggests that Irenaeus
may have been the impetus behind the addition of his phrase. The
concern is that this phrase confuses people.

The
confusion with this phrase in the Apostles creed more probably comes
from failing to recognize the breadth of meaning of the word Hell,
translated in the Bible from “Sheol” in Hebrew and
“Hades” in Greek. Hell/Sheol in the Bible does not
designate any more than the state of the dead; it is used to
designate the afterlife of both the righteous and the wicked.
However, in evaluating this statement in the creed, we need to
determine if the Bible says that Christ descended and if He descended
into hell. Only then can we pass judgment on the Apostle’s
Creed.

Is it Biblical to speak of Christ descending?

The
“descent” of Christ (other than His walking up and down
hills) is mentioned in the Bible in three places:

Joh
3:13 And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out
of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven.

Joh
6:38 For I descend from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the
will of Him that sent me. (vs. 33-58 repeat this phrase many times)

Eph
4:7-12 But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the
measure of the gift of Christ. Therefore it says, ‘When He
ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
(Now this “He ascended,” what is it but that He also
descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the
same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill
all things.) And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and
some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting
of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of
the body of Christ:

It
is clear enough that the Bible speaks of Jesus descending, so this
word “descended” cannot be objected to in the creed.

Where?

The
next question is, Where did Jesus descend, according to the Bible?

The
passages in John quoted above speak of the descent of Jesus from His
glory in heaven to humanity on earth. This corresponds well with
Philippians 2, where the Bible teaches that Jesus emptied Himself and
humbled Himself to be found in a human form.

The
Ephesians passage mentioned above says Jesus “descended to the
lower [part] of the earth.” What does this mean? Psalm 139
speaks of the “lower of the earth” being the womb, and Ps
113:6, Prov 30:14, and Isa 11:4 speak of the “lower of earth”
being poor humans, so this could be consistent with Jesus becoming a
human – being born of Mary and being despised among men.
However, Psalm 63:9 speaks of the “lower of the earth”
being the punishment for the wicked (i.e. hell), and there are also
other passages speaking of Jesus’ death as being below the
earth:

Matt
12:40, (cf Luke 11) “for as Jonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

John
12:24: Speaking of His death, Jesus said, “Except a grain of
wheat fall into the earth and die”

Phil
2:10 and Rev. 5:3,13 also speak of the dead as those who are “under
the earth” so this phrase, “He descended to the lower of
the earth” can well encompass not only Jesus becoming a human
but also His suffering the penalty for sin (death) and burial in the
ground.

Did Jesus Descend into Hell?

There
are two other passages of scripture that imply that Jesus spent some
unspecified time in the place of the dead:

Rom
10:7 “'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring
Christ up from the dead).”The Greek word “abyss”
denotes depth as in a “pit” and is exclusively used to
describe hell in the NT (Luke 8:31, Rev.11:7; 17:8; 20:1-3)

Acts
2:31- “you will not abandon my soul to hell” (cf Psalm
16:10 Hebrew=Sheol/ Greek=Hades/ KJV=hell). For the soul of the
Messiah to not be left in hell, it had to be there in the first
place.

Did Jesus meet with the devil in hell while His
body was in the tomb?

I
hope that it has been adequately proven that there can be no Biblical
objection to the concept that Jesus descended into hell, although
this is not explicitly tied together in the Bible as it is in the
Apostle’s Creed. The only remaining objection is whether or not
to use the phrase in the order in which it is placed in the creed
after “He was crucified, dead, and buried.”

The
Bible states that Jesus uttered the words “My God, why have you
forsaken me? … It is finished” while yet on the cross,
indicating that He suffered the pangs of hell (separation from God,
which is the punishment for sin) and finished that atonement before
his physical body died and was buried. While on the cross, Jesus also
promised the repentant thief that they would meet in heaven that day.
(“Today you shall be with me in paradise”) Jesus was
buried at the end of that day, so His time in the tomb can not be
considered as days in hell.

Nowhere
does the Bible say that Jesus went to hell after He died, although
there are some passages that have been misconstrued in proof of this
notion. One is I Peter 3:18ff, but the timeframe of this passage is
clearly the time of the flood, not the time of Christ’s death,
so it is best to understand Peter as speaking of Noah preaching to
people before the flood about the salvation which God was providing
through the ark, rather than of Jesus preaching in hell during his
death. Colossians 2:14ff speaks of Christ “disarming the powers
and authorities and triumphing over them in the cross,” which
does not indicate that He did this after the cross, but rather while
on the cross. The other passage which has been used in proof of a
time in hell after Jesus’ burial is Ephesians 4:8ff(cf. Ps.
68:18). It says “When he ascended on high, he led captivity
captive,” but again if you look at the words, this triumphal
leading of captives was not done while He was descended, but rather
fourty days later while He was ascending to Heaven.

So, what of the phrase “He descended into
hell” in the creed?

There
are significant points in favor of keeping the phrase:

It
preserves the poetry of Ephesians 4 with “He descended…He
ascended”,

It
is consistent with actual words that the Bible uses concerning
Jesus’ death,

It
has been accepted doctrine for over a millennium and a half around
the world,

Its
omission would create confusion for visitors who are used to the
phrase being there and would find themselves out of step with you in
the recitation of a truncated creed.

There
are also weaknesses to this phrase in the creed:

It
is placed out of chronological order after the burial of Christ,

It
is redundant to the meaning of “He was crucified, dead, and
buried” and therefore not necessary (I Cor 15:3-4),

Its
use of the ambiguous word “hell” and the history of the
erroneous doctrine of Jesus in hell during His three days in the
tomb can contribute to confusion in understanding the meaning of
this phrase,

It
is not scripture, so as a man-made creed, we are not obligated to
consider it free from error.

The
pro’s slightly outweigh the con’s in my mind, so if
people do not object to it, I would recommend keeping the phrase in
the creed and explaining it. However, because of the significance of
the con’s, I believe it would be no great loss to remove this
phrase from the creed to keep people from confusion.